A Mutual Attraction
by lemonygoodness1998
Summary: Amaimon x OC. When a certain green-haired demon meets Lila, he can't get her out of his mind.


Amaimon's POV

It was in the middle of the night and in an alley in the middle of the city. I don't think either of us knew how it started. All we knew was that we were fighting, and we were fighting violently.

"Hm," I hummed coolly, slightly confused but not yet aggravated. "I wonder why you aren't dead yet."

The hooded figure (it wasn't wearing a cloak like it would in Gehenna; rather, it was wearing dark pants and a dark hooded sweatshirt) was visibly panting but showed no signs of giving in. Neither of us had managed to land a blow on each other, something I was quite impressed with. It was unheard of for a mere human to match Amaimon, the Earth King, much less a human as tiny as this.

"Because I refuse to die," the figure said calmly.

My eyes widened slightly.

"You certainly are going to be a fun toy," I said.

"I'm not a fucking toy," the figure spat. "I'm…"

It trailed off. Suddenly it dashed to the nearest dumpster, threw open the lid and stuck its head inside. I heard loud retching sounds coming from the figure and I cocked a brow.

"What's going on?" I asked, approaching the figure. It put up a hand to stop me from coming any closer, but I easily pushed it down and leaned against the dumpster, impatiently waiting for the figure to finish vomiting.

When it was done it spat into the dumpster before wiping its mouth on the back of its hand.

"Sorry," it said, hoarse from the acidic vomit.

"I can't really blame you for vomiting out of fear. I am a fearsome opponent."

"Fuck you," it groaned.

"Such a foul mouth."

"In more ways than one," it said, spitting into the dumpster again. That drew a smirk from me.

"You're entertaining," I said. "We should do this again."

The figure laughed sardonically. I pulled out a fresh lollipop, unwrapped it, and stuck it in my mouth before tossing the wrapped into the still-open dumpster.

"I don't think I'll be doing this again," it said.

"Why not? You held me off remarkably well, and you don't even seem afraid of me."

"Because I'm really sick. I only snuck out of the hospital tonight because I couldn't stand lying in that damn bed for another twelve hours."

I hummed and gave my lollipop a suck, flicking my tongue around the candy head.

"What is your name, human?" I asked.

"If you're calling me a human then I suppose you're a demon," it said. I nodded.

"I'm Amaimon, the Earth King," I said.

"What an honor," it said sarcastically as it closed the dumpster.

"Don't mock me, human. And you still haven't told me your name."

The figure reached up to its hood and pulled it down, revealing a full head of long brown hair, brown eyes, freckles, and pale skin. She ran her hands under her hair and pulled it out from her hood, letting it fan around her shoulders.

"My name is Lila," she said. "I was a student at the True Cross cram school until I got sick."

She was honestly very beautiful, though she did look quite sick; her skin was sallow, her cheeks were sunken, and there were dark purple bags under her eyes. I suddenly felt myself doing something extremely out of character – I offered her one of my lollipops.

She put up a hand to decline it.

"Thanks, but I don't really like sweets all that much. At least not lollipops."

"How can you not like lollipops?" I asked, astonished but refusing to show it.

"It's the artificial flavor. Artificial stuff just kind of weirds me out. I don't know what it is."

"Okay."

We eventually sat on the ground and talked. I learned that she was sixteen, had been taking martial arts lessons for twelve years, had skipped a grade in school, and could play the guitar. I learned that she wanted to be a writer if she couldn't be an exorcist, that she had a cat named Noelle who was particularly attached to her, that her father had died when she was very small and she had been raised by her grandfather, that one of her good friends was Yukio Okumura, that she was keeping up with her exorcist training while in the hospital. In turn I told her about Gehenna's landscape, about parts of my childhood with Mephisto, about my distaste for the Okumura brothers. She laughed at that, saying that she knew, that she had seen me attack Rin in the forest. By the time we were done talking the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon, and Lila said that she needed to return to the hospital because her nurses were probably worried about her.

"Which hospital are you in?" I asked.

"Ironically enough, Mephisto Memorial," she said.

"I'll take you back."

"Thanks, Amaimon."

I found myself, surprisingly, _really_ liking the way my name rolled off her tongue.

Although she said she wouldn't be doing it again, there we were, fighting in the middle of the night again. I was able to land several light blows on her this time, and I wondered if it was because she was sick. I got my answer when she put up her hand to stop me from advancing. She fell to her knees and panted heavily.

"You win," she wheezed. "You win."

"Are you okay?" I asked. She nodded her head.

"I just shouldn't have fought you tonight," she said. "The treatment takes a lot out of me."

"I can tell." I knelt down in front of her and ruffled her hair in an effort to be of some comfort. She snickered.

"Nice try, Broccoli Boy."

That irked me, so I lightly flicked her forehead. She snickered even harder.

We sat down in the middle of the alley and talked again, though not as long. About two hours into our conversation Lila had to stand up and stick her head in a dumpster to vomit. I held her hair out of the way, something else that was strikingly uncharacteristic of me. Once she was done she thanked me and took out a hair tie. She tied her hair back and tucked it back into her hood.

"I think I should go back now," she said. "I'm not feeling too well."

"I'll take you back again," I told her rather than offered. If her treatment truly was taking that much out of her then she wouldn't be able to defend herself from any attackers… if she died then my toy would be lost and I would be back to picking fights with the Okumura brothers. Needless to say, Lila was considerably more fun than the twins.

One day, about three weeks after our last encounter, I asked Mephisto about her. He hummed in recognition.

"Lila Alexandra Donovan," he said, taking a sip of his tea. His teapot floated in the air despite the fact that we were in his office and he had a perfectly good table in front of him. "Sixteen years old, remarkable student, hand-to-hand combat extraordinaire, friend to our very own Professor Okumura."

"I know all of that," I complained. "Tell me something new."

"Well, she was a student at True Cross Academy until about a month ago."

"What happened?" I asked eagerly. She had very purposefully avoided talking about her illness, and I, being myself, was very curious about it.

"She was diagnosed with cancer," he said.

My heart began to make a slow path into my stomach. I swallowed.

"What kind?" I asked disinterestedly.

"Ovarian. Fairly severe."

My heart suddenly plummeted into the soles of my feet. Why, I had no idea. She was just a plaything. Playthings don't make you want to cry when they leave.

"You said that you already knew 'all of that,'" Mephisto continued. "May I ask how?"

"You may."

"How?"

"She's snuck out of the hospital a couple of times. I've run into her."

"I'm assuming that you talked for hours," he said, trying and failing to hide a slight smirk behind his teacup. I didn't like it.

"Yes," I said.

"Exceedingly unlike you, brother," Mephisto said. "Befriending a human."

 _Befriending_.

It suddenly made sense. I didn't view her as a plaything; I thought of her as a friend. That was why I was filled with worry for her.

I shrugged my shoulders in an effort to seem apathetic.

"I like her. She's not scared of me, and she's interesting," I said.

"I see."

He took another sip of his tea before speaking again.

"Would you like to see her today?"

"Yes," I said too quickly. Mephisto his another smirk behind his teacup, and I still didn't like it.

My brother took me to Mephisto Memorial almost immediately. He did all of the talking, as I was unfamiliar with how to behave at a hospital. We were suddenly in front of room 236.

"Are you going to open it, brother?" Mephisto asked. I nearly jumped. I had been lost in thought.

"Right," I said, taking the doorknob in hand and twisting.

When I entered the room I was shocked. She looked horrible, her cheeks even more sunken and skin sallow to the point where it was almost green. Her hair was gone, leaving behind a pale expanse of forehead that covered her entire head. I was initially confused as to why she would shave her head, but I soon remembered hearing that cancer treatments make one's hair fall out.

She was lying facing the door, her eyes open. When she noticed my brother she appeared to be extremely confused. She struggled to sit up, so Mephisto went to her bedside and kindly helped to prop her up on some pillows.

"Hi, Principal Pheles," Lila greeted my brother. "Why are you here?"

"My brother wanted to see you," he said, gesturing to me. I still stood in the doorway with my shoulder resting against the frame.

Lila turned her head and finally noticed me, her face lighting up beautifully as her eyes lit upon my face. I felt my heart give an incredibly painful throb, though I had no idea what it meant at the time.

"Hi, Amaimon," she said. She suddenly turned away and coughed into her fist. "Sorry."

"No need to be," I said. I went to sit in the chair that stood beside her bed, crossing in front of my brother in the process.

"How are you keeping up with your classes?" Mephisto asked her.

"Fairly well, but I do miss school," she said. "I never thought I'd miss school."

My brother chuckled. He was obviously fairly fond of her.

"And why is that?"

"You've received enough complaints about me to know why."

"Ah, yes. The friend thing."

"What friend thing?" I asked.

"Miss Donovan isn't the most popular student in school," Mephisto said.

Lila scoffed.

"Understatement of the year," she said.

"At least you have… _Yukio_ ," I said, biting out the boy's voice distastefully. Both Lila and Mephisto noticed, but only my brother smirked.

"I'll leave the two of you alone," he said, turning to leave the room. "Don't do anything you wouldn't want on a security camera." He pointed the tip of his umbrella towards the corner of the room where a spherical black object hung from the ceiling.

"I'll keep that in mind, Principal Pheles," Lila said. I noticed that her face was slightly red. It almost relieved me to know that she was still capable of flushing, but I was more curious as to why his statement would have embarrassed her.

"Why are you blushing?" I asked, poking one of her cheeks with the tip of my long nail. She reached up and weakly brushed my hand away.

"You didn't understand what he meant, did you," she said rather than asked.

"He meant no stealing or other illegal activities," I said. Wasn't it obvious?

"He meant no fucking," she said bluntly.

I was taken aback. It was only by sheer force of will that I pushed down my own flush.

Something on my face must have given me away, because Lila was immediately laughing, and laughing loudly. Once she managed to calm herself down she wiped a few tears from under her eyes with the back of her hand.

I couldn't help but smile slightly at her. I was glad she could still laugh even though she was sick.

It became a ritual. I would come to visit her for two hours every day. During that time we would watch a movie on the television that hung in the corner of the room, or she would let me read some of her writing (her ideas were spectacular, and her writing was so vivid I could have sworn I was in the story myself), or she would play the guitar for me (she refused to let me touch it until I clipped my nails), or we would just talk. I became fairly well-known amongst the nurses of that floor, although the ones who knew about demons were wary of me at first. After a month, however, even those wary of me at first smiled when they saw me.

One day a nurse stopped me from entering the room. My heart automatically sped up. Was Lila okay?

"Is she alright?" I asked, attempting to appear apathetic. It must not have worked, because the nurse smiled and shook her head at me.

"She's fine. She's actually doing quite well, to tell you the truth," she said. I let out a breath of relief. "She just has another visitor at the moment."

I was suddenly very… _jealous_. It was completely unwarranted, I knew, but I wanted to be the only one she talked to. I wanted to be the center of her world, and that was _stupid_. I knew better than that.

"Who is this other visitor?" I asked.

"Her friend, Yukio." I wanted to punch someone. "He comes once a week, but he came a bit earlier than usual today."

"Alright," I said, restraining myself from hitting the woman. I might have done so in the past, but I realized that it wouldn't fix anything. Plus, Lila probably liked this woman. I didn't want to make her upset.

I went and stood in front of room 236, pressing my ear to the door. The nurses smiled and shook their heads at me, knowing exactly what I was doing.

"How are you doing?" I heard Okumura's voice ask.

"Doctor Kirigaya told me that I'm doing remarkably well," Lila answered. "I might get to go back to school next month."

"That's not really what I meant," he said. "I meant how are you doing mentally?"

She sighed.

"I'm alright. It's just…"

"Just what?"

"I don't think I should talk about this with you, honestly."

"Do you have anyone else to talk about it to?"

"No," she said quickly. What was I, then?

"Then talk away."

"Alright," she breathed. "There's… this guy-"

I had never heard Yukio Okumura laugh, but there was a first time for everything.

"You? Boy problems?" he asked through his laughter.

"Shut up, Yukio," she laughed in return. "I told you I shouldn't have talked to you about this."

"I'll be quiet," the boy snickered.

"No you won't. Don't lie to me."

"True enough, but I'll let you finish."

"Good enough."

The thought of Lila having romantic problems irked me to no end. Wasn't I enough for her? Why did she need another guy to make her happy? I was always there for her to talk to, for her to hug if she needed to, for her to steal candy from, for her to cry to. I absolutely could not _stand_ the idea of her wanting a boyfriend who wasn't me.

 _Boyfriend who wasn't me_.

Oh, I was fucked.

Everything came rushing back to me – the times I had offered her lollipops, the times I had walked her back to the hospital, the urge to know things about her, my capacity to talk with her for hours, the way I was constantly worried about her, the way my heart would throb painfully whenever I saw her.

I was attracted to/in love with (take your pick, because I had no idea which it was) Lila Donovan. I was _so_ fucked.

"So there's this guy," Okumura prodded.

"Okay, so there's this guy. I met him when I snuck out of the hospital one night-"

"You snuck out-"

"What was that about letting me finish?"

"Sorry.

"Anyway, I met him when I snuck out of the hospital one night, and we got into this huge fight. Then I threw up and we talked for hours."

That sounded a lot like how we had met. I brushed it off. It wasn't me.

"And then it happened again, and then his brother brought him to visit me in the hospital."

Not me.

"And now he's visited me every day for about a month."

Not me. It couldn't be.

"Hm," Okumura hummed. "And you're attracted to him? That's odd. I thought you were a lesbian."

"I thought so, too."

 _Well, that's interesting_.

"So, you're attracted to him…"

"And I have no idea what to do about it," Lila finished.

"I see."

They were silent for a moment. Then Okumura spoke.

"Would I approve of this boy?" he asked.

"No way in hell," she laughed.

"And why is that?"

"Do you really think I'm going to tell you?" she asked.

"Yes."

"You know me too well, Yukio."

"So, why wouldn't I approve."

"Because… he's a demon."

I froze. There was a chance! Holy fucking shit on a stick, there was a chance!

"That's… that's not good," Okumura said eventually.

 _Shove it up your ass, Okumura_ , I thought.

"I know," Lila responded. "I just… I can't help it, you know."

"I know. It's just not exactly the most legal thing in the world."

Lila made an unintelligible noise of frustration.

"Do I know this demon?" Okumura asked.

"Yes."

"It's not Principal Pheles, is-"

" _God_ , no," she laughed. "You couldn't get me to date him if you paid me."

"And I'm going to assume it's not me or Rin."

"You are correct."

"It better not be Satan."

"Once again, you couldn't get me to do that if you paid me."

"That leaves… Oh my God."

"I hate myself, too."

"Amaimon? Really?"

Lila groaned.

 _Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit._

I pumped my fist in the air and the nurses laughed. I'm sure one or two knew what was going on.

"So… what are you going to do about it?" Okumura asked.

"Nothing."

"What do you mean, 'nothing?'"

"I mean nothing. He doesn't like me like that, I'm almost positive."

How wrong she was.

I visited her as normal that day, trying not to notice the way her eyes didn't quite meet mine.

I lay on the couch in my brother's office and groaned into a pillow that I had placed over my face. Mephisto sighed for the umpteenth time.

"What is it, brother?" he finally asked.

"You won't approve."

"It's Lila, isn't it?"

I peered out from under the pillow.

"How did you-"

"Brother's intuition," he answered. "I hope you know that it's illegal."

"I am aware."

"But you should also be aware that I wouldn't be opposed to… not knowing that you two were dating."

I perked up.

"Seriously?" I asked. "You wouldn't report it?"

"I believe that Miss Donovan's ovaries were removed as part of her cancer treatment, so there is no danger of producing half-demon offspring. Once she recovers from the chemotherapy she will be fully capable of fending you off if you get angry. There doesn't seem to be any risk associated with the relationship."

I almost felt myself smile.

I continued to visit her in the hospital until she was discharged. She was, miraculously, in remission, and I was overjoyed. She returned to True Cross Academy soon after she was released from the hospital, though I was constantly watching her through windows to make sure she didn't fall in the hallways or pass out in class. Her hair had grown into a short pixie style, her sheeks had begun to fill out, her skin (though still pale) was no longer sickly sallow – she looked better, and I couldn't have been happier.

We had agreed to meet up soon, so I decided to show up at her gym class one Friday. She was sitting on a bench to catch her breath after running, undoubtedly winded from the chemotherapy. I walked up to her and sat beside her, nudging her with my shoulder.

"Hey, Amaimon," she said. "You know you shouldn't be here."

"I know," I said.

"And you know that our gym teacher is probably going to try to shoot you if he sees you."

"I know."

"And you're still here because…"

"Because I have something to tell you."

"O-Okay."

I took a deep breath. This wasn't going to be easy.

"I heard you talking with Yukio a few weeks ago," I said. She immediately froze.

"Which conversation?" she asked rigidly. I almost laughed at the way her eyes stabbed the ground rather than looking at me.

"The one where you said you were attracted to me."

She buried her head in her hands and groaned.

"I know you don't like me like that and I'm _so_ sorry and we can still be just friends if you want because I mean I can control myself and everything-"

I pulled her hands away from her face and gently pressed my lips against hers. When I pulled back her eyes were wide.

"What the fuck?" she asked. This time I did laugh.

"Do you really not get it?" I chuckled.

"Do you… like me, too?" she asked a bit awkwardly. I nodded, placing my chin on the top of her head.

"A lot," I admitted.

She began to laugh as well, laughing until tears were streaming down her face.

"What's so funny?" I asked.

"I have no idea," she wheezed.

I pressed a kiss to the top of her head and sighed.

"It's illegal," she said.

"My brother has promised not to tell the Vatican," I told her. She pulled back, eyes wide.

"Seriously?" she asked incredulously. "You're shitting me."

"I'm not," I said. A gorgeous smile lit up her face and I couldn't help but smile back. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and buried her face in my neck, and I placed my own arms around her waist.

"Does this mean we're together?" she asked.

"I'd like to think so."

"Alright then."

"Alright then."


End file.
